By Jeremy Miller, OP, (Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Emory University)

The presence of Professor Jurgen Moltmann highlighted the 43^rd Annual Ministers' week held at Emory University. Moltmann teaches in the Protestant Faculty of Theology in Tubingen University. One of his Catholic colleagues in the same German University is Father Hans Kueng. Moltmann achieved international recognition with his book, The Theology of Hope, and more recently, The Crucified God.

Since our archdiocese is becoming more conscious of the diaconate Ministry in the Church, Moltmann's reflections of "diaconia" have some currency for all of us. The dialogue this essay proposes is two-pronged: Moltmann's contribution to this recent Catholic consciousness followed by some reflections of mine addressed to Moltmann.

Moltmann spoke not on the diaconate but on the diaconal nature of the whole Church, and he viewed this under the three aspects of the Kingdom of God, the Cross of Jesus, and the Power of the Holy Spirit. He defined diaconate as service in discipleship of the Crucified One, in the context of the coming of the Kingdom. The whole community, and not just a few individuals, are called to this.

Jesus' mission to bring the Kingdom cannot be separated from his own "diaconia" (service). Jesus came to bring liberation, and when we look more closely where Jesus was doing this, we see the crowd of the poor, the outcasts, the hurting ones. They did not go to the Kingdom; the Kingdom (in Jesus) went to them. But what did Jesus do? He healed them, not only in their souls, but in their physical needs. Diaconia in the context of the Kingdom is wholistic healing, bringing together what is separated and fragmented in human lives.

But if the Church is called to heal as Jesus did in this way, what do you do in the "hard situation," when we meet incurable illness for instance? How can we hope when it seems hopeless? At this point, we must be more Christian than ever and fall back on that puzzling doctrine that wounds are healed through wounds. As Moltmann said, "fundamentally only a suffering God can help. Through His wounds we are healed." Jesus' silence on the Cross speaks with the greatest volume.

Two approaches to the world's suffering are possible to a Church of Disciples. Either it can try to heal without becoming personally contaminated, or it can dare to become wounded itself. Disciples take up, not His Cross, but their own crosses in solidarity with all who suffer. Whoever voluntarily takes on suffering begins to heal the others, to give peace, and is himself in the deepest sense healthy. A diaconal Church must be ready to die daily. To serve is to become wounded. Those who serve in any other way are simply escaping from self and will eventually become burdens on others, by communicating to others one's inner emptiness and anxieties. The more one loves life, the more one becomes sensitive to others in their hurt, and the more that servant (deacon) becomes hurt. So, a diaconal church, under the Cross, shares in suffering by taking on suffering, but in the presence and power of the Risen One.

Turning to diaconia and the Holy Spirit, Moltmann issued a sober warning to the Church. We tend to pass off our responsibility of service to certain "professionals" in the Church. We train certain ones and have them alone address the "hard situations." But Moltmann feels this is a cop out of the whole community to a few professionals, with the result that the larger community becomes passive and insensitive. By "professionalizing" a few specialists, the Church will end up dehumanizing itself.

This was not Paul's vision of gifts of the Spirit. The varieties of gifts are spread across the whole community, and the whole Church must be a caring community. The community itself has the healing power. The diaconal Church must receive into itself the "sick," the "wounded" and the "outcasts." Professionalization helps, but it is not the final answer. At the bottom line to the Church is the question, do you dare to become a hospice for the wounded yourself?

These are strong visions of Moltmann. What may we say to him to continue the dialogue? We can recognize times when we were more concerned about the good of the soul and not the body. The administration of sacraments in a business-like, impersonal way, trusting that grace would do its job, was not the wholistic approach of Jesus to people. Whenever we were perpetrators of segregation and class structures, we were not bringing into the community the modern "outcasts" for this might wound the tranquility of the community.

In a positive way, however, we can add to the dialogue. The Church, the Catholic Church at least, has always had special groups who have dedicated themselves to a particular service. One thinks of the orphanage communities, our own Sisters here who minister to incurable cancer patients, groups dedicated to liberation of the mind through education. When rightly understood, these specialized groups are not simply those who do our job for us, but instead are constant visible reminders that a caring Church must be involved, and their visible witness pricks our conscience. When we are periodically reminded of the service of the Cancer Sisters, of St. Vincent de Paul Society, of high school educators, and so many others, we cannot rest content with our own non-involvement in our own situations, whether with sick friends and relatives, or the disposed we meet at every turn, or our own children.

Let me extend that last example. Some years ago, the mentality was: give our children to the parochial schools for education. "The Sisters will do it." It is very clear now that unless parents are co-involved in what the schools and religious ed programs are about, the Christian education project stumbles along. Can we not use the term, the diaconal family, in this regard?

The Archdiocese of Atlanta is ordaining deacons yearly. In the various roles they perform, but mostly in that hard saying of "caring service," these candidates for diaconate do not relieve the community of its caring service but more visibly remind us. To serve is to risk getting hurt, and I think Moltmann is right that it is more than that; to serve is to expect getting wounded. If the Church is to be diaconal in the footsteps of its Lord, we are all in some sense wounded healers.